Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Avoid Drowning in Data: Keep Afloat with ESI in Construction Litigation

May 15, 2023 — Steve Swart - The Dispute Resolver
Maybe it is another lawyer on your team, a client, the Court. Maybe it is you. Almost every lawyer has heard (or thought, felt, or anguished over) the following: Wait — What? Discovery is going to cost how much? The concern is real. Per a 2019 Southern District of New York opinion:

The average case can involve collection, review and production of 100 gigabytes of data (or 6.5 million pages of Word documents).
At a typical rate of review of 40-60 documents per hour, assuming 100,000 documents are collected, that is about 2,000 hours of attorney review time.
Adding in fees for forensic collection, storage, and processing to maintain metadata can result in a bill totaling $500,000.

Brown v. Barnes & Noble, Inc., 474 F. Supp. 3d 637, 645 & n.3 (S.D.N.Y. 2019). What's counsel to do? The following four points can help counsel streamline and reduce costs in discovery: (1) know your case, (2) know your data — understand it and document collection, (3) cooperate with counsel, and (4) implement a protocol for electronically-stored information ("ESI"). Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Steve Swart, Williams Mullen
Mr. Swart may be contacted at sswart@williamsmullen.com

The Miller Act Explained

May 21, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Garret Murai, on his California Construction Law Blog, goes over the nuances of the Federal Miller Act. Murai explained, “Named after John E. Miller, former Arkansas Congressman, later U.S. Senator and still later federal judge, the Miller Act was enacted in 1935 in the middle of the Great Depression, to help ensure that subcontractors and material suppliers working on federal projects get paid, by requiring contractors who contract directly with the federal government on federal construction projects furnish payment and performance bonds.” Murai answered questions such as what is required under the act, who is protected, how a general contractor could protect itself from a Miller Act claim, as well as others. Read the court decision
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Sold Signs Fill Builder Lots as U.S. Confidence Rises: Economy

June 26, 2014 — Shobhana Chandra and Nina Glinski – Bloomberg
Buyers swarmed builder lots in May to propel the biggest gain in sales of new homes in 22 years, while consumer confidence this month was the strongest since 2008, showing how an improving U.S. job market is giving the economy a much-needed lift. Home sales jumped 18.6 percent, the largest one-month surge since January 1992, to a 504,000 annualized pace, according to figures from the Commerce Department today in Washington. Another report showed household sentiment climbed in June to the highest point since the early days of the recession that began more than six years ago. Payroll gains that have exceeded 200,000 workers for four consecutive months and stable borrowing costs at historically low levels are giving Americans the assurance to step back into the real-estate market. The need for builders such as Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. (HOV) to keep up with the growing demand will lead to gains in construction that will boost the economic expansion. Ms. Chandra may be contacted at schandra1@bloomberg.net; Ms. Glinski may be contacted at nglinski@bloomberg.net Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Shobhana Chandra and Nina Glinski, Bloomberg

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Reaffirms Validity of Statutory Employer Defense

March 31, 2014 — Michelle Coburn and Michael Jervis – White and Williams LLP
In Patton v. Worthington Associates, Inc., the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reaffirmed the continuing validity of the longstanding statutory employer doctrine and related five-part test of McDonald v. Levinson Steel Co. In doing so, the court overruled the Superior Court and held that Worthington was immune from tort liability as the statutory employer of plaintiff Earl Patton. Worthington was the general contractor for a project to construct an addition to a church. Worthington subcontracted with Patton Construction, Inc. to perform carpentry work. Earl Patton was an employee and the sole owner of Patton Construction, Inc. He was injured in a scissor lift accident while performing work on the church. Patton sued Worthington alleging failure to maintain safe conditions at the worksite. After a trial, a jury awarded Patton and his wife a little more than $1.5 million in damages. Before trial, Worthington had moved for summary judgment arguing that it was Patton’s statutory employer and thus immune from tort liability under Pennsylvania’s Workers’ Compensation Act. Under that law, general contractors are secondarily liable for payment of workers’ compensation benefits to employees of subcontractors. Like traditional employers, statutory employers are immune from tort liability for work-related injuries in situations where they are secondarily liable for workers’ compensation payments. Reprinted courtesy of Michelle Coburn, White and Williams LLP and Michael Jervis, White and Williams LLP Ms. Coburn may be contacted at coburnm@whiteandwilliams.com; Mr. Jervis may be contacted at jervism@whiteandwilliams.com Read the court decision
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Who is Responsible for Construction Defect Repairs?

August 24, 2017 — Laura Parsons-CDJ STAFF
An appellate court has ruled that the sponsor and not the condo board is responsible for repairing construction defects at 50 Madison Avenue, a multi-story apartment building in New York City across from Madison Square Park, Habitat reported. Plaintiff’s Simon and Ludmilla Lorne have brought upon three lawsuits in a legal battle lasting a decade. The first came in 2007, two years after the Lorne’s purchased their $3 million seventh-floor apartment. At that time, the sponsor offered to repair the concrete slab under the hardwood floors that had not been properly leveled. However, the Lorne’s and the condo board disagreed about who and how the repairs would be accomplished. The second lawsuit wherein the court ruled that repairing the construction defects was the responsibility of the sponsor occurred in 2009. However, the Lorne’s sued the board yet again in 2015, citing failure to maintain and repair the building. Since the 2015 suit was based on the same allegations as the 2007 suit, it was dismissed by the judge. Read the court decision
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Bill would expand multi-year construction and procurement authority in Georgia

March 06, 2023 — David R. Cook Jr. - Autry, Hall & Cook, LLP
A bill introduced in the General Assembly would modify the authority of state and local governments, as well as school systems, to enter multi-year contracts for construction and procurement. In many prior posts, we have addressed state and local governments’ authority to enter guaranteed energy savings performance contracts and multi-year contracts.

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Reprinted courtesy of David R. Cook Jr., Autry, Hall & Cook, LLP
Mr. Cook may be contacted at cook@ahclaw.com

Touchdown! – The Construction Industry’s Winning Audible to the COVID Blitz

February 08, 2021 — Bill Shaughnessy, Jones Walker, LLP - ConsensusDocs
COVID-19 has changed the way we live, work, play football, and build. As with all of society (and our football leagues and teams), the construction industry was impacted over the last year through the implementation of new safety protocols in response to COVID-19. While some construction projects were delayed or put on hold, much of the construction industry was fortunate to continue to build throughout the pandemic. Building under COVID-19 safety protocols led contractors to “call an audible” in order to make up for lost time and to save costs. In doing so, many contractors started incorporating or expanding the use of under-utilized tools, resources, capabilities, and technology such as pre-fabrication, and modular construction, while at the same time reexamining planning methods, monitoring critical schedule activities, and ways to better execute construction. In many ways, the effects of COVID-19 safety protocols and measures implemented by contractors in the past year have led to more efficient and cheaper construction projects now and for the future. So, it is not surprising as we turn our calendars to 2021 that contractors can expect these tools, resources, and technologies to be utilized more in the years ahead, even once the pandemic subsides. This article highlights some of the “positive” effects of COVID-19 on projects and highlights several ways contractors attempted to increase efficiency and reduce costs in response to the pandemic. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Bill Shaughnessy, Jones Walker, LLP
Mr. Shaughnessy may be contacted at bshaughnessy@joneswalker.com

West Coast Casualty Promises Exciting Line Up at the Nineteenth Annual Conference

March 28, 2012 — CDJ STAFF

West Coast Casualty has announced the lineup for the annual WCC Construction Defect Seminar. This year’s seminar will be the nineteenth anniversary, and it will be held on May 17th and 18th, 2012 in Anaheim, California. They are the largest construction defect event in the world and this year’s seminar will again bring the top people in the field to address many of the current issues and where the construction defect community will be going in the future.

The event, anticipated to be even larger than prior years, will have numerous panels and presentations on the current state of construction defect litigation. Among the topics that will be presented are “Arbitrate? Let’s See You Make Me!” “Defending Construction Defect Failure Mechanisms?An Expert’s Perspective,” and “Current Trends in Effectively Handling SB800 Cases.”

Speakers at the event will include judges, lawyers, and representatives of the insurance industry. One event, “Meet Your Judges, A Candid Discussion on Construction Defect Claims and Litigation from the Bench?” will include judges from five states, including the Honorable Nancy M. Saitta, Chief Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, the Honorable Clifton Newman of the South Carolina Circuit Court, and the Honorable Rex Heeseman of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Daniel A. Berman, Esq. and Stephen Henning, Esq. will be talking on the topic of “Social Networking Sites: Strategies, Ethical Pitfalls, and Practice Pointers for Litigating and Winning Your Construction Defect Case.” Mr. Berman is a Founding and Managing Partner of Wood, Smith, Henning & Berman LLP. He has been named a Southern California Super Lawyer for eight consecutive years. Mr. Henning is a Founding Partner of Wood, Smith, Henning & Berman, LLP and Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America. Mr. Henning will also be one of the presenters on the panel “Important Court Decisions Impacting Construction Defect Claims.”

The panel “Why Do We Need to Know Certain Things and How Decisions Are Made” will be presented by important figures in the construction claims industry, including Phyllis Modlin, Todd Schweitzer, Teresa D. Wolcott, and Lee Wright. Ms. Modlin is a Construction Defect Claims Supervisor responsible for nationwide claims for Markel Corporation. Mr. Schweitzer is an Assistant Vice President of Major Case for Construction Defect and Professional Liability Claims Services at Zurich North America. Ms. Wolcott is the National Product Manager for Construction Defect Claims within the Construction Claims Organization at Travelers Insurance. Mr. Wright is an Assistant Vice President and Senior Claims Consultant for XL Specialty Insurance.

The event will also include a Science and Technology Fair in which exhibitors will be presenting technological problem solving and decision making as they relate to resolving ongoing construction and post construction-defect related issues while reducing costs for all those involved in claims and litigation. The fair is dedicated to these novel applications of science and technology that benefit the construction defect community but are not yet commonly available. This will be the third time the Construction Defect Seminar will include a Science and Technology Fair.

Sessions at the event are approved for MCLE credit in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. MCLE credits vary by state; attendees can obtain up to 10.25 hours of credit in Arizona, California, Maine, and New York. Applications for several other states are still pending. Additionally, the event is also worth continuing education credits with the Florida Department of Insurance and for Registered Professional Adjusters. West Coast Casualty has applications pending for adjuster continuing education in an additional thirty-six states.

West Coast Casualty recommends this event for anyone involved in construction or construction defect claims, whether they are a claims adjuster, a member of a homeowner board, a judge, a property manager, a construction claims attorney, a general contractor, or anyone else with an interest in this area. The event typically has more than 1,600 attendees. Those interested can register online.

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SEATTLE WASHINGTON BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES